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This week's drug war news
as usual includes no shortage of outrages. Despite the mass murder
of more than 2,000 Thai drug suspects without trial by police in recent
months, the supreme commander of Thailand's Army and the chairman of the
US Joint Chiefs of Staff are meeting to discuss how they can help each
other fight drugs. And in Peru, the military, assisted by US forces,
will resume shooting down airplanes that they suspect or claim they suspect
of carrying drugs -- also without trial.

Our government will not reduce
our country's drug problem by helping other governments around the world
commit murder. Any reductions in coca in Peru will be replaced by
increases in other countries. Any reductions in opium in Thailand
will be replaced by increased in other countries. This "balloon effect"
is well demonstrated, has been happening reliably for decades, and any
public official or pseudo-academic who claims otherwise or that it might
be different next time is lying to us and/or himself.

There is no legitimate moral,
intellectual or practical justification for encouraging or assisting drug
war murders. Yet the powers and interests driving them have no desire
to stop nor even slow down, neither abroad nor at home. Just as the
death of Veronica Bowers, the 35-year old missionary shot out of the Peruvian
sky in error, stopped the shootdowns only temporarily, the death of Alberta
Spruill in New York City from a "no-knock" warrant prompted only temporary
discussion -- they're not even talking about ceasing the deadly no-knock
drug raids, though the innocent deaths happen again and again. The
drug warmongers will concede nothing voluntarily, no matter how terrible
or outrageous or execrable.

Since policymakers lack the
moral clarity or political will in sufficient numbers to perceive and stop
drug war atrocities by the agencies under their authority, it is up to
people to demand it of them. We must expose the grotesque immoralities
of the drug war, we must insist that fundamental ethics and proportion
and due process be restored to laws and policies, and we must demand accountability.
We must describe failure as failure, injustice as injustice, and murder
as murder. And we must regard informed inaction as complicity, and
deliberation human rights violations perpetrated or permitted by governments
as no less condemnable than acts of violence committed by criminals or
terrorists.

To do so would be to devalue
the fundamental ideals of what is right and what is wrong that have stood
the test of millennia. There is no drug war exception to good and
evil.

3. The Gathering
in Cartagena: The Global Social Forum Thematic Meeting on Democracy,
Human Rights, War, and the Drug Trade

More than 4,000 activists
and academics met in Cartagena, Colombia, on Monday for a week-long confab
to discuss war and peace, democracy and repression, the drug war and drug
legalization. Convening under the rubric of the Global Social Forum,
whose first general session drew 30,000 people to Rio de Janeiro last year,
this special thematic meeting marked the first time the so-called anti-globalization
movement has put drug policy and drug prohibition on its international
agenda.

But drug policy is only part
of the social forum, with its dozens of speeches, panels, workshops and
roundtables on topics ranging from women's rights to alternative media
to organizing against violence, and much more. Even the most well-attended
drug policy events draw only a quarter of the social forum participants,
but that is unsurprising given the multiplicity of panels and forums going
on at any given hour.

Drug reform is an issue whose
supporters span a wide political range including the progressive left,
the libertarian right, and others in between and outside those points on
the ideological spectrum. The Cartagena forum fell solidly in the
left portion of the spectrum, and this defined many of the aspects of gathering
as a whole. Perhaps the single most outstanding feature of the forum
was the drumbeat of criticism of the policies of the US government -- something
that has been a staple of the Latin American left for decades, but which
has now, in the post-Iraq war era, deepened and spread among delegates
from all over the world.

This anti-Americanism, sharpened
to an angry edge by the militarism of the Bush administration, was perhaps
less evident in the drug policy sessions than among the forum in general,
but it still informed the analysis of speaker after speaker. Strident
words about US foreign policies, however, should come as no surprise at
a meeting deliberately convened in Colombia, a country that has suffered
terribly as US military aid to a government deeply complicit in the worst
kinds of human rights abuses on one side, and drug trade profits on the
other side, continue to escalate a decades-long civil war and violence
of all kinds.

[While DRCNet was a willing
participant in the social forum as part of its ongoing effort to help forge
a global anti-prohibitionist movement, as an organization it takes no position
on issues other than drug policy.]

Many panels consisted of
presentations of academic work on various aspects of drug policy, while
others provided a forum for peasant, student, youth and labor leaders to
address their struggles with the war on drugs and its ramifications on
their lives. Indeed, some of the most powerful presentations came
not from scholars but from grassroots activists, such as Nancy Obregón
of the Confederation of Peruvian Coca Producers (interview below).
"They call us the initiators of subversion, those who cause war, they say
we are malicious and the coca leaf is evil," an impassioned Obregón
told a rapt audience of hundreds. "Sadly, now to be a peasant is
a sin. Our leader, Nelson Palomino remains in jail as a terrorist
and a narco, and where does this persecution come from?" she asked.
"Imperialism," she answered herself.

Talk of imperialism may sound
quaint or trite to North American ears, but the view is quite different
on the other side of the Caribbean. And on drug policy at least,
they have a point -- as evidenced by the fact that Peru's president went
straight to the US embassy for his next appointment after Obregón's
meeting with him last spring.

"I'm not some big professor,"
Obregón continued, "just a humble peasant, but I speak from my heart.
The sacred leaf is our life, and we are here to say no to the war on drugs,
no to the violence it brings, no to war. We are defending the lives
of the most humble, we are defending the kids who need a chance.
The coca leaf is not a drug, cannabis is not a drug -- they are plants.
They are not evil -- they are plants. This war on drugs is a big
show and it is the great punishment of the world," she continued.
"We must now stand against neoliberalism and with our Colombian comrades.
The same that happened in Peru is now happening in Colombia -- more war,
more hunger, more children without parents. We want Colombian children
to live in a humane condition and we reject the violence of the war, whether
by the government or the rebels or the paramilitaries. They talk
about the war on drugs, but we are not drugs, we are human beings."

Just in case Obregón
wasn't clear enough, Cuban academic Louis Soares drew the connections that
seemed obvious to most of the audience. Noting that there had been
no noises from Washington about invading countries like Holland, a leading
manufacturer of synthetic drugs, particularly ecstasy, Soares declared
that the US war on drugs is a "selective employment of the theme of consumption
and traffic of drugs as part of a politics of aggression and hegemony toward
the third world." Agreeing that plants are not somehow illicit, he
blamed US capitalism. "Capitalism transforms the most sacred plants
into commodities, then demonizes them," he said. "They do this to
justify their politics of aggression. I invite all who have read
the new Bush national security doctrine to note that it includes drug traffickers
as one of the threats. This occurs within the political discourse
that seeks to legitimize Plan Colombia, seeks to legitimize US military
bases all over Latin America, and seeks to strengthen the forces of repression,
supposedly to fight the drug traffic," he said to sustained and enthusiastic
applause.

As DRCNet will report next
week, not all the talk at the conference was the fire-breathing anti-American
or anti-capitalist rhetoric exemplified by Soares. There were reasoned
analyses of Afghanistan opium production and numerous micro-analyses of
various aspects of the drug war, from the impact on peasants in the Andes
to the rise of the drug "commands" in Brazil's favelas. Stay tuned
for an in-depth report on the conference in our next issue.

Also next week, DRCNet will
report on the resolution of an effort by global drug reformers, organized
by the Mama Coca organization (http://www.mamacoca.org),
to form an international commission to research the damage done by prohibition
as part of the struggle to convince governments and international organizations
that prohibition must end. In a working session attended by nearly
80 drug reformers from around the world, participants began working to
arrive at a consensus on whether a global commission was the correct step.
There will be more meetings on this potentially very important step today
(Friday), and DRCNet will update you on the results next week.

Nancy Obregón, an
indigenous peasant woman from Tocache province in Peru, has emerged as
a leading voice among Peruvian coca growers. Elected to the second
highest office in the national confederation, Obregón stepped forward
with the arrest of confederation leader Nelson Palomino in February.
She helped lead the cocaleros' (coca growers) "March of Sacrifice" to Lima
last month and participated in negotiations over coca with the government
of President Alejandro Toledo. Obregón also attended the "Out
from the Shadows" hemispheric anti-prohibition conference in Mérida,
Mexico, in February. DRCNet spoke with Obregón at the Global
Social Thematic Forum in Cartagena, Colombia, Wednesday evening.

The Week Online: When
DRCNet last reported on the struggles of the cocaleros in Peru, you had
just marched into Lima and met with the government, and it appeared that
you had won important concessions. But within days, contrary reports
appeared. What happened? Was your "March of Sacrifice," as
you called it, a success, did you win the concessions you wanted?

Nancy Obregón:
We made many sacrifices for the March of Sacrifice, and although there
were problems, I consider it a success, because we gained things we had
never gained before. We always wanted to go the capital to talk to
the youth, the educators, the people of Lima. We had never been able
to do that, but thanks to the march we were able to. And not only
in Lima. Whatever provinces we marched through, we gained the respect
and support of the people. And we gained the respect of President
Alejandro Toledo. When he came out and spoke to us, he said that
the coca grower is not a drug trafficker.

Nancy Obregón in Mérida

We presented a program with
our demands. We wanted the value of the coca leaf to Peru to be recognized
once again. We wanted freedom for Nelson Palomino. We wanted
a halt to the eradication of coca. We asked for the promulgation
of a new coca law. Since 1978, the Peruvian Coca Enterprise (ENACO,
the state coca monopoly) has controlled the lands where state-sanctioned
coca is grown. Likewise, we wanted a study of the production of coca
leaf for traditional use -- we are limited to 12,000 hectares, but that
figure was set in the 1960s and is now obsolete. Because of population
growth and new coca products, that figure should be two or three times
higher. We asked for a commission to be formed to see where all the
alternative development money went, because it sure didn't come to us.
We wanted an end to new logging concessions in the forest. These
foreign entrepreneurs come in and want concessions on coca land, then they
cut down all the trees and don't replant and blame it on the coca growers.
They're taking our land and our trees away from us, taking peoples' titles
and paying 40 cents a hectare -- that's practically nothing. We also
asked that the government address the problem of the Free Trade Agreement
of the Americas and the importation of products from outside, especially
agricultural ones, because this would harm our farmers and they have no
way of competing. If we cocaleros as agricultural producers could
send our products to other countries, it might be different, but we don't
see any benefit in the FTAA. Also, we wanted a government commission
to study the effects of fumigation and the impact of fusarium.

Those are things we proposed
to the government, and the president's council of ministers agreed to put
this in a supreme decree from the presidency. But [prime minister]
Solari wrote the decree, and used lawyerly tricks in doing so. He
used all sorts of subtle and ambiguous words to muddy what they had agreed
to. And that same day, as we were about to enter the ministry to
see the agreement, reporters told us the US ambassador had gone in.
Then we went in and had to wait and wait.

Finally, Solari came out
and told us our advisor, Baldomero Cáceres, had to leave because
President Toledo wanted to speak with us, but Toledo never came out.
Instead, Solari, DEVIDES [Peruvian anti-drug agency] head Nils Ericsson,
drug advisor Armendina Veramendi and agricultural ministry advisors came
out. They had the decree all written when they came out and it was
supposed to be in agreement with our points, but we said we had to analyze
this and when we went through it point by point, they were full of double
meanings, and they said they couldn't release Palomino because they couldn't
interfere with the judiciary.

They thought we were useful
idiots because we are peasants. And when we argued in a private meeting
with them, they said we had to agree. That's not what President Toledo
said. He said if we were not in agreement, the door would be open.
But that's not what Solari and Ericsson said. They said if you mess
with us again, you're fucked. That's the kind of language they used.
But Toledo said he wasn't in agreement with the decree as written.
I asked him if he would give his word, and he said had given his word.
And that's where we are.

WOL: In the wake of
violent strikes and protests by teachers and the unemployed in Lima last
month, President Toledo put the country under a state of emergency.
What impact has that had on your movement?

Obregón: We
knew that when the teachers went on strike we could have done a lot, but
if we had acted we could have created a catastrophic situation like Argentina
in the 1970s. We abstain from acts of violence or protest as long
as the door is open for dialogue with the government. And the state
of emergency hasn't really had many repercussions in the countryside; the
protests of the teachers and the unemployed that led to the state of emergency
were in the city, as are most of the repercussions. I think the people
being harmed were not the government, but the common people. I think
the state of emergency will end soon.

WOL: Is the door still
open?

Obregón: We
continue to believe so. The state of emergency is sad but necessary
because of the acts of violence against public and private property.
It is good to protest, but not to damage property. We are against
war, we don't believe in violence to express our demands. That is
not the way to make demands on the government.

WOL: Your movement
and its leadership have been described in various accounts as being with
the Shining Path or terrorists or narco-traffickers. How do you respond?

Obregón: We
have always said that to defend the rights of the peasants is not terrorism.
And to cultivate the coca is not the same as participating in the drug
trade. Now the government is trying to pull a trick like in Colombia,
they are trying to tie us to the Shining Path or the narcos, but those
are lies, and they come from the US State Department and the US Embassy.
They fear the specter of Evo Morales. But the problem is, if they
continue with their eradication and their counterinsurgency approach, they
will guarantee that the Shining Path revives. It is the negative
impact of eradication and repression that makes people rise up, not us.
And peasants in Peru are not thinking like peasants anymore, but like politicians.
What happened in Bolivia could also happen in Peru and Colombia if there
is not change.

They are afraid because on
September 11, 2002, a year to the day after the twin towers fell, our confederation
came into being. It was the result of our continuing frustration
with the government and with DEVIDES. We have complained about repression
against us and corruption in the alternative development programs for years,
but nothing ever happened, nothing but promises that they never accomplished.
We had 35 delegates sitting in the DEVIDES offices waiting to talk to them.
We sat there for five hours and we realized these people were not defending
us in the face of eradication, and we decided to form a transition committee
for a national confederation.

Four months later, on January
20 of this year, we held our first national congress. Thus CONCPACCP
(Confederacion Nacional de Productores Agropecuarios de las Cuencas Cocaleras
del Perú, the Confederation of Peruvian Coca Growers) was born.
Nelson Palomino from the Rio Apurimac valley was elected secretary general,
and I was elected sub-secretary. I am from the department of San
Martin in Tocache. We also elected as leaders Flavio Sanchez Moreno
from Aguatiya, Elsa Monpartida Jara from Tingo Maria in the Upper Huallaga
valley, Deodora Espinoza Barra from Aucayacu, Guillermo Mendoza from Tingo
Maria and Juan Rios from Uchiza. We are peasants who grow coca, we
are not terrorists or drug traffickers.

WOL: Nelson Palomino
was arrested in February on charges of terrorism. What is going to
happen with him?

Obregón: Those
charges are false and malicious, but Nelson remains in prison in Ayacucho.
We see him as being in jail with the coca leaf. He is growing politically
in there, he is preparing himself in there, he is studying. I know
the judicial process must take place, but we are confident he will be freed.
Once he is free again, things will begin to change for us because now we
are not thinking as humble peasants but as politicians. Instead of
hurting Nelson and our movement, the government has done us a great big
favor. The same way the Bolivian government does when it throws mud
at Evo Morales. They are making Nelson more powerful. Bolivia
has its Evo, Peru has its Nelson.

WOL: Repression within
the legal system is not the only form repression takes, is it? I
understand there have been attempts on your life.

Obregón: It
is true, at least two times. Last year, when they were dramatically
eradicating the coca in my country, I went to Lima to protest and I took
with me videos of the actual fumigation operation -- it was from helicopters,
with soldiers manually throwing the pesticide out the door -- and the agricultural
products damaged by fumigation. The government said we were lying,
but we said look, we have it on this video. This got somebody's attention,
because in November, on a day I was supposed to be in Venezuela for a meeting,
they burned my house down. I wasn't in Venezuela, I was at home because
I got a funny feeling. I told my husband I didn't want to go.
Luckily, none of us was injured, but I regard this as an attempt on me
and my children. When we tried to put out the fire, suddenly the
water pipes went dry. What a coincidence, huh? We later found
out the pipes had been cut. I think it was the intelligence service
that did it. That demoralized me and for two months I didn't do anything
with the movement, but I came back. I told one of the government
bureaucrats, "You tried to kill me, you burned down my house, but I'm not
dead, I'm still fighting, and if you don't kill me, I'll live long enough
to see all of you dead."

On one other occasion during
the eradication, the army saved me. There were men following me,
and I went to the army base and told the commander, "If I am found dead
tomorrow, please take my family away from here and watch out for my children."
The commander asked, "Why do you say this?" I said, "Listen, there
are two assholes following me." The commander said, "How do you know?"
And I said, "Listen, I know a rat when I see one." He said, "Well
then, Nancy, why don't you sleep here?" And I said, "No, I will sleep
in my own house, thank you."

That night, at 2:20am, there
was a loud knock on the door and we heard voices yelling, "Everyone out!
The guerrillas are coming!" When we didn't come out, they started
yelling at us with vulgar words -- "We've come to kill you, you miserable
whore" -- and we knew it wasn't the guerrillas because they don't use such
language. Then there were shots, and my husband said he would go
out. I told the kids to hide in a hole in back of the house where
it is very dark. I usually wear a dress, of course, but I put on
my pants and boots, my war uniform, and grabbed a machete. In my
heart I was enraged, but my brain was calculating how long it would take
for the kids to escape while I confronted the killers. I was ready to chop
off the head of whoever attacked me.

My husband told them they
should take him instead of me, and they made him kneel on his knees.
They were threatening me, yelling stuff like, "You already fucked us up,
you whore, now you'll pay." I was ready with the machete, but then
six flashlights appeared in the woods and voices yelled, "Up with your
hands!" The guys came out of the woods carrying big rifles, and I
thought, "Shit, it's the guerrillas." But it was the army!
Then the commander of the army patrol made our attackers show their identification,
and one of them was a police major. He told the soldiers there were
terrorists at our house. The army guys told them, "We have orders
to protect Nancy, and if you kill her, we will kill you right on this spot."
I told those guys that if anything happens to me or my kids or my cousins,
their families will pay unto the fourth generation.

What happened to me is not
unusual. Many people have disappeared. There are some things
that have happened that I don't even want to think about. It hurts
my soul. But the threats and the intimidation and the violence don't
stop us. In fact, we have learned to think and act like the government.
When they send their intelligence officers after our leaders, we have our
own people to find out what they are up to. Also, these attempts
show how organized crime can be part of the government. Like Vladimiro
Montesinos with [disgraced former president] Fujimori, he worked with the
CIA and the paramilitary groups that have attacked us and killed people.
The government is unintentionally training us to defend ourselves.

WOL: Why are you willing
to risk everything for the right to grow coca?

Obregón: Coca
is important to Peru's indigenous people, and those in Bolivia and Ecuador
and Colombia, because it is a central part of our life, our traditions,
our existence, and it is part of nature in which we live. It is very
deep and strong in our culture. Without coca there would have been
no Macchu Picchu, there would have been no Nazca. It impregnates
our hearts and runs in our blood. One man I know can put coca leaves
in his hand and read the future, he can tell people, "Don't travel on this
day, there will be a crash." Many neoliberal economists and anthropologists
have come and tried to separate us from the leaf, but they will fail.
The coca leaf is our sacred plant.

Obregón: From
governments of the world, absolutely none. There is USAID, of course,
and other money for alternative development, but while that money comes
to Peru, it never makes it to the peasants. This has been going on
for 20 years. But on the level of people, there is much solidarity.
When I went to Mexico in February for the Out from the Shadows conference,
it was very good. I showed the people what was happening and they
were very impressed, and eventually my Mérida trip led to two North
Americans coming to the community to see how we live, and a European and
a Chilean have come, too. That is something that brings us great
joy, because it shows we are starting to have a much greater amount of
international solidarity. No one ever came to see us in our villages
before. Now we have friends overseas, friends in other countries.
I have to be sure to tell people that this is not about Nancy; I am only
part of an organization. In Bolivia, they have their Evo, but here
we have Nelson and Nancy and Juan and Elsa and Flavio and many others.

WOL: Did the Mérida
conference have other impacts on you?

Obregón: Oh,
very much! When I arrived I was blind to the reality in front of
my eyes. It was the first time I heard talk of prohibition and legalization
and decriminalization, and these were strange concepts for me. But
I took these ideas back to Peru, and we discussed them among ourselves
and we analyzed them and we had lots of meetings about this. I got
to the point where I believe that legalization is the answer, because prohibition
only brings more misery and more hunger. Prohibition is the war on
drugs as we know it, and I now feel that we should legalize the drugs and
trust each person to be responsible in using something for pleasure.
That is my perspective now.

WOL: What would you
tell the people of the United States if you could talk to them?

Obregón: I would
tell them they are completely mistaken if they think we cocaleros are their
enemies, they are mistaken. We are not the enemy, we are the last
wheel on the car of the drug trade. We want to let the American people
know we are not the enemy, but it is the governments that want to dominate
us that are the enemy. Coca should not be prohibited, I would tell
them, it should come to the table with other foods. I'd like to see
those gringo chefs make a coca cake and have those gringo scientists investigate
to compare the coca cake to the natural cake and see which one is better.

5. DRCNet
Interview: Anthropologist Anthony Henman

In 1978, Cambridge-educated
anthropologist and author Anthony Henman published "Mama Coca," a groundbreaking
work of ethnobotanical anthropology that for the first time showed Westerners
not only the indigenous coca culture of the Andes but also the beginnings
of the politics of coca and cocaine prohibition and how they impacted traditional
cultures. Since then, Henman has continued to work as an anthropologist
and expert on psychoactive substances in the Western Hemisphere, and was
honored with a keynote address at the Global Social Thematic Forum in Cartagena,
Colombia, this week. DRCNet spoke with Henman in Cartagena on Tuesday
evening.

The Week Online: How
did you come to write "Mama Coca," and what happened once it was published?

Anthony Henman: I first
came to Colombia in the early 1970s. Things were wide open then;
there was an open cannabis market in Bogota, and cocaine was just beginning
to appear. At that point, I wasn't really interested in cocaine;
I was more of a toker at the time. In 1973, I finished my university
studies at Cambridge and was offered a job in Popayan, the regional capital
of the traditional coca growing area in Colombia. It was very much
a part of the gringo trail at the time, with all kinds of traveling hippies
coming through town. There was very good weed, the Colombian red
bud. And then there was the very traditional country scene as well.
I was amazed at peoples' different reactions to the coca leaf. Having
lived through all that, and given my interest in the plant and its traditional
use, I couldn't ignore what was beginning to happen at the time.
That was the first area that set up cocaine processing kitchens, although
they produced pounds, not tons. And the cocaine always came out different,
sometimes pink, sometimes off-white, which proved that is was coming from
a number of small labs, not the monopoly business we have now. Actually,
I doubt that even today it is as much a monopoly as portrayed by the media.

"Mama Coca" was originally
conceived as a classic conventional anthropological description of coca
use, and cocaine was not originally part of what I had planned. But
cocaine was coming on top of the traditional use, and I couldn't ignore
it. While people were interested in the ethno-botanical stuff, what
made "Mama Coca" notorious was that it was the first time anyone got into
print with criticisms and allegations against the war on drugs and the
drug warriors. There was a chapter in the middle of the book that
dealt with that. For my efforts, I got harassed by immigration officials
for years to come, and in Britain the book was seized by police and the
publisher was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act. I guess
they read the act broadly, since it is supposed to cover works likely to
"corrupt or deprave." We got a lot of notoriety in the press, but
it didn't do us much good, since all the copies had been seized and were
sitting in a warehouse. The prosecution lost the case in 1984, but
it still took us nine more months to get the books back, and by then everyone
had lost interest. It's a good example of how official harassment
can be effective even when they don't have a good legal case. It
wasn't too good for my career as an author either, because it discouraged
British publishers from publishing books about drugs or ever having anything
to do with me again.

WOL: What have you
been doing since then?

Henman: I've done research
on lots of other sorts of drugs and drug use. I studied mushrooms
in Wales for my doctoral thesis, and I did a lot of work on drug prescribing
and needle exchange programs in Liverpool and New York, including a major
evaluation of needle exchanges in the late 1990s in New York. It
was an annual report for the Department of Health. I've also published
a few papers about empowering drug users and their organizations in that
context.

WOL: Are you affiliated
with the organization Mama Coca?

Henman: No. They
asked my permission to use the name, and I said of course. We also
correspond all the time, but I am not a member.

WOL: What are you doing
these days?

Henman: I'm working
on a research project in Peru on mescaline-containing cacti, specifically
the San Pedro. There are three different species of San Pedro, with
slight differences among the three. I'm trying to collect as many
as I can in their native environments. I am not a chemist, so I try
to feel what the difference may be by subjective experimentation.
I've tried different ways of preparing it, but it still tastes pretty awful.
Still, it is very much the basis of traditional medicine in northern Peru
and coastal Peru. It is the basis for divination and curing, but
I find the doses they use for those purposes disappointingly small.
People feel a little strange, but they don't really trip. The curanderos,
however, are a different story; they sip it all day long. It is not
discussed as a drug problem; in fact, it is even legal in the US, and you
will find it in every garden store that carries cacti, because it is very
good for root stock. It spread all around the world as root stock,
and that was before anyone knew it contained mescaline.

My main interest has always
been the coca leaf, but while it has interesting botanical, medicinal and
ethnographic aspects, it is a subject that is becoming over-determined
by the current politics of the cocaine business -- the violence, the corruption,
all that -- so it difficult to talk about coca leaves as a traditional
path in Colombia. You can do that in Bolivia or Peru, where it is
still legal, but here in Colombia, when the public hears coca, it thinks
of Pablo Escobar. I find it tedious and tiresome that one cannot
talk about the interesting uses of coca in Colombia. This drug prohibition
and drug trafficking nightmare will eventually end, or if not, the whole
planet will be destroyed by it. I hope drug law reform will end this
nightmare and people can get back to understanding these plants as they
really are.

WOL: How do you look
at coca?

Henman: Coca is not
just an object for our consumption, but a historical subject in itself.
First, we have to erase from our minds the image of the damned leaf.
Coca doesn't deserve the sobriquet. It's a plant, and like every
other species, it wants to reproduce. It is a hermaphrodite, it is
very fertile, and it is chock full of alkaloids. It is a dangerous
plant, some say, a liar, a traitor. But I say that this slander of
the coca plant is hideously repugnant. After 50 years of war against
coca, we have not met one goal of the anti-coca policies. The plant
continues to reproduce. Even worse, every time there is a change
of ministers, they come out with the same banalities about how they will
fight the plant endlessly and how they will win. They can't win,
but they always say they are on the verge of winning. A war against
coca can never bring anything positive to the planet, despite what they
say. We have to change our perspective completely and become at peace
with coca as it deserves, for it is a plant with many virtues. Perhaps
they can't eradicate coca because the objective is mistaken; perhaps it
is because the real objectives of the war on drugs have nothing to do with
their declared objectives. But I think this will pass; I can imagine
a day when it is cultivated on a legal basis wherever it is advisable.

This war on coca is violence
and killing without end. They say they are doing this killing and
poisoning for the good of all. How absurd! It is absurd because
what they accomplish is to make coca part of a malignant trade all over
the planet. This has people thinking about the legalization of coca.
That would be good. It would eliminate the negative aspects, especially
the criminal aspect, which, after all, are not part of the coca plant,
but part of drug prohibition.

6. Dozens
of Students to Embark This Weekend on 50-Mile "Skate for Justice"

(press release from Students
for Sensible Drug Policy)

About two dozen drug policy
reform activists will embark on a 50-mile journey from Binghamton to Ithaca
in upstate New York in the second annual "Skate for Justice" (http://www.skateforjustice.org)
this Sunday, June 22.

Most of the participants
are members of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (http://www.ssdp.org),
an organization with chapters on over 200 college campuses nationwide.
The skaters and bicycle support team will depart from Broome Community
College (BCC) in Binghamton and make a 48.9-mile pilgrimage to the Commons
in Ithaca. The purpose of the journey is to draw attention to the
failings of current drug policy.

The event isn't just for
fun. "First and foremost, it will raise awareness," said Justin Holmes,
event organizer and point skater. "Hundreds or thousands of motorists
will see us on the day of the event. We hope to use this exposure
to draw attention to the problems of drug prohibition and begin the process
of an open and honest dialogue about drug policy."

The event draws attention
to injustices inherent in American drug policy by highlighting several
specific issues. The controversy surrounding the so-called "Rockefeller
drug laws" is one such issue. "These laws are so horribly draconian
that prisons have filled up across the state in the years since they've
been enacted," said Sean Nosky, event organizer and point skater.
"Across the political spectrum, cries for reform can be heard, including
from US Senators Hilary Clinton and Charles Schumer, US Congressman Charles
Rangel, and several NY state Senators and Assemblypersons."

Another issue that participants
aim to raise awareness about is the Higher Education Act drug provision,
which denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions of
any kind. Other issues of interest include securing safe and legal
access to medicine for medical marijuana patients, re-legalizing industrial
hemp cultivation, and reducing the ratio of prison spending to higher education
spending.

"The Skate for Justice is
helping to redefine the 21st century drug policy activist," said Shawn
Heller, national director of SSDP. "No longer will we allow ourselves
to be misrepresented; whether it is a 50 mile skate or 50 letters to Congress,
the youth of today are energized and ready to bring about a more just America."

A press conference with opportunities
for interviews with organizers and participants (including Shawn Heller)
will be held in the main student parking lot of Broome Community College
at 9:00am prior to departure (large lot in the center of the map at http://www.sunybroome.edu/aboutbcc/campusmap.html).

7. Newsbrief:
12 Tulia Victims Walk Out of Jail

The people arrested and convicted
on drug charges after the notorious Tulia, Texas, drug bust of 1999 are
going home. Twelve of the 15 people remaining in prison on Tulia
charges were released on bond Monday to await a ruling by the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals that should end their cases once and for all.
The move came after Ron Chapman, a specially-appointed Texas judge who
oversaw hearings on the cases, ruled that the prosecutions lacked credibility
and the Texas legislature passed a bill that would allow the release of
the remaining prisoners.

But it isn't over yet, according
to attorneys who worked the case. "It's a significant day, but it's
not the end at all," said Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund. "Our clients are walking out under the cloud
of conviction."

And it could be tough for
the released defendants to hang around, Amarillo lawyer Jeff Blackburn,
who was key in springing the wrongly-convicted Tulia defendants, told the
New York Times. "It's going to be impossible to stay here," said
Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer from Amarillo. "These folks will have virtually
no chance if they stay here. They will be arrested for spitting.
They will be pursued to the ends of the earth."

Things could also get tough
for the Texas criminal justice system, as a congressional committee prepares
to scrutinize the Tulia incident this fall. Meanwhile, others in
Congress are calling for the immediate overturning of the Tulia convictions.
Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Melvin
Watt (D-NC), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) joined
more than 40 drug reform, criminal justice, civil liberties and civil rights
groups in decrying the convictions and demanding that the verdicts be overturned.

This spring's legislative
session in New York is ending with no deal made on changes to the state's
draconian drug laws. Despite a late-into-the-night session including
Gov. Pataki, senate majority leader Joe Bruno (R-Brunswick), assembly speaker
Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and hip-hip impresario/activist Russell Simmons
-- in which Simmons at one time physically blocked Bruno from leaving the
room, according to the Daily News -- neither repeal nor reform will happen
before the legislature adjourns for the summer.

The session also ended with
not apparent resolution of a disagreement among advocates on strategy,
with Mothers of the NY Disappeared and the Correctional Association of
New York wanting a strong repeal approach but Simmons attempting to broker
a compromise to get something passed this month.

Still, all parties to the
effort signed on to a radio ad blitz, under the umbrella of the Countdown
to Fairness coalition, asking listeners to call the governor and state
legislature urging them to reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The
ads ran as follows:

"Thirty yeas ago New York
Governor Rockefeller signed the harshest drug laws in the nation... imposing
long mandatory minimum sentences for even low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.
The result? Over-crowded prisons and no reduction in New York's drug
problem. Thirty years have proven that prison cells are not the answer
for these low-level offenders. Drug treatment costs less... is more
effective... and keeps people from returning to prison. If the Governor
and Legislature would fix these outdated laws, New York taxpayers could
save over $250 million. For years Republicans and Democrats have
promised change, but in three days they'll be on vacation... and they've
still done nothing. Please join Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Mayor David
Dinkins, Russell Simmons, The Mothers of the New York Disappeared and the
Drug Policy Alliance... call Governor Pataki and your state legislators
at (518) 474-8390. Urge them to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Law.
Paid for by the Countdown for Fairness."

According to the Saturday,
June 14 installment of the "Dem Convention Diary" section of WisPolitics.com
(http://www.wispolitics.com/freeser/features/f0306/f0306demconv/f03061303.html),
"Howard Dean and veteran Madison marijuana advocate Ben Masel faced off
in an impromptu hallway debate on medical marijuana Friday night."
Masel told WisPolitics.com, "It's hard to be the peace guy and blow off
the potheads."

In an e-mail sent to fellow
drug reformers, Masel reported that Dean, recent former governor of Vermont,
used the occasion to "clarify" his position on medical marijuana, which
has reported to be anti. According to Masel, Dean claimed he opposed
the Vermont medical marijuana bill because he does not believe "medical
decisions should be made by legislatures."

Dean proclaimed that as president,
he would "on the day I take office direct the FDA to take a fresh look
at the existing studies, and issue a report in 60 days," and would then
implement the report. Dean then added that "speaking not as a candidate,
but as a physician," he would "expect the report to recommend marijuana
be approved for chemotherapy and AIDS, but not for glaucoma, because we
have new medications for glaucoma that are even better. And no medication
is completely safe."

Principle or posture?
Clarification or Concession? You, the voter, decide.

10. Newsbrief:
RAVE Act Reverberations

In the wake of the cancellation
of a Montana NORML/SSDP benefit by the venue's owners after a DEA agent
warned them they could face a $250,000 fine under the RAVE Act if anyone
used marijuana at the event (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/290.shtml#dearave),
organizers of some drug reform-related events have begun to cancel events
or relocate them to friendlier territory. At the same time, national
drug reform and civil liberties organizations are mobilizing against the
RAVE Act, now officially known as the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act.

The Sonoma Health and Harmony
Festival (http://www.harmonyfestival.com)
in California has cancelled plans to have a medical marijuana smoking area
due to fears of RAVE Act prosecutions, California NORML has reported.
And the Wisconsin Weedstock festival (http://www.weedstock.com)
is relocating across the border to Canada -- to Sault, Ontario, where there
currently are no laws against marijuana possession, let alone anything
like the RAVE Act. Weedstock will become part of the Planetary Pride
Hemp Fest (http://www.planetarypride.com/comingsoon.html),
an Ontario-based event now in its fifth year.

As some groups change plans
under RAVE Act prosecution pressures, the drug reform movement is mobilizing
to roll back the law, which was stalled under stiff opposition in the Senate
last year, but which passed easily once it was stealthily inserted into
the popular Amber Alert by RAVE Act sponsor Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE).
Drug Policy Alliance has made repealing the RAVE Act one of its action
priorities (http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/action/),
and other major reform and civil liberties groups continue to plot strategies
to kill the law.

With Montana State University-Billings
education major and founder of Teachers Against Prohibition (http://www.teachersagainstprohibition.org)
Adam Jones temporarily retiring from drug reform because of a repressive
probation officer, the fledgling drug reform organization has reemerged
with new leadership under a new name. During a Sunday Internet meeting
of the group's board of directors, the board decided to rename the organization
Educators for Sensible Drug Policy, name Richard Lake chairman of the board
for the next year, and appoint chairs for the group's Canadian and New
Zealand branches.

According to a posting by
Lake, the name change came as part of an effort to provide a more positive
image for the group and to make it more inclusive. The group's board
also voted to revise the web site and email lists to reflect the group's
new name and revise the web site to make positive policy recommendations.
For example, wrote Lake, "we agreed that it is simply not enough to oppose
DARE-like educational efforts. We will seek to recommend reality
based alternatives; for example, the alternatives presented by Marsha Rosenbaum's
Safety First (http://www.safety1st.org)."

The organization is also
seeking donations to defray costs, grow its membership, and reach out to
other groups with similar interests. Look for an e-mail newsletter
from ESDP by summer's end.

Prosecutors in Kentucky can't
charge
people with manufacturing methamphetamine unless they actually have everything
they need to do so, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled on June 12.
Prosecutors there had gotten in the habit of charging people they suspected
of preparing to manufacture meth with actual manufacture. Under Kentucky
law, attempted meth manufacture warrants a five-year minimum sentence,
while actual meth manufacture garners a minimum 10-year sentence.
The ruling came in the case of Ronald Kotila, who was convicted in Pulaski
County on a meth manufacturing charge in 1999. Kotila possessed many
of the items needed to cook speed -- all of them commonly available and
legal by themselves -- but not two essential ingredients, anhydrous ammonia
and muriatic acid. Kentucky law specifies that for someone to be
charged with meth manufacture, he must possess "the chemicals or equipment
for the manufacture of methamphetamine."

The Supreme Court interpreted
the phrase strictly. "The presence of the article 'the' is significant
because, grammatically speaking, possession of some but not all of the
chemicals or equipment does not satisfy the statutory language," the court
said in an unsigned opinion.

Prosecutors began to whine
immediately. "We're going to have to examine all of our cases that
are pending right now," Davies County prosecutor David Nall told the Owensboro
Messenger-Inquirer. "It's really taken away a big stick so to speak,
a punishment hammer. You've basically cut the fear in half."
And so did at least one Supreme Court member, Chief Justice Joseph Lambert,
who wrote the minority opinion in the 4-3 decision. It will be difficult
to prosecute meth manufacture cases, Lambert wrote, because a suspect "with
the least amount of ingenuity will be able to prevent his conviction by
merely omitting from his cache of tools and ingredients one or two of the
more common, and bringing in the missing components only at the last moment.
Thus to achieve a conviction... it will be necessary to catch the offender
'red-handed.'"

13.
Newsbrief: Thais Get Drug War Help from US

Even as the Thai government
faces global criticism for its brutal spring crackdown on drugs this spring
-- more than 2,000 people were killed, with Thai police the leading suspects
-- the US DEA is stepping up cooperation with the Thai military, the Bangkok
Post reported. The Thai Army's Task Force 399, set up with DEA help
to combat drug trafficking, has set up a new unit in Chiang Mai to coordinate
information flowing from the DEA, and the agency will also provide intelligence
and anti-drug training for the task force and the entire Third Army, according
to sources cited by the Post.

Now, just two weeks after
demonstrations worldwide against the Thai government's murderous campaign
(http://www.drcnet.org/wol/291.shtml#thaidemos),
Gen. Surayad Chulanont, supreme commander of the Thai Army and creator
of Task Force 399, will visit Washington, DC, to meet with Gen. Richard
Meyers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss further cooperation
between the two countries in fighting the drug war.

14. Newsbrief:
US-Peru Anti-Drug Flights Set to Resume

The Bush administration is
set to resume cooperation with Peru in a program that shoots suspected
drug-running planes out of the sky. That program was abruptly suspended
nearly two years ago when Peruvian Air Force pilots working with CIA spotters
shot down a private plane carrying US missionaries. In the August
20, 2001 incident, 35-year-old Veronica Bowers (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/183.html#coca)
was killed and her husband wounded.

US officials are worried
coca cultivation is on the rise in Peru. "We are seeing a large increase
in the number of people clearing out old coca fields, and getting back
into it," an unidentified "senior US official in Peru who is familiar with
antinarcotics efforts there" told Knight-Ridder News Service. The
increase in Peruvian cultivation is tied to intense pressure on growers
in neighboring Colombia, the failure of alternative development programs
in Peru's coca-growing regions, and the inability of the Peruvian state
to enforce the ban on illicit coca crops.

The US-backed air surveillance
and shooting down of unidentified planes was halted abruptly after Bowers
and her daughter were killed, and investigations into the incident found
that the US CIA employees involved did not have sufficient Spanish fluency
to communicate with their Peruvian partners. But Peruvian pilots
and US anti-drug employees have received new training, including simulator
training in Oklahoma City, and the flights should be back in the air before
year's end.

"We have detected unregistered
flights that we cannot confirm are drug flights, but many probably are,"
said Peruvian drug czar Nils Ericsson. [Ed: Let's hope they
can figure that out before they shoot down more innocent civilians or submit
more suspected airborne traffickers to extrajudicial execution.]

The killing zone also includes
Brazil, which has intercepted 88 drug flights since its new Amazon regional
radar system went into operation, and Colombia, which is also expected
to resume shootdown flights with US cooperation before the new year.

15. Newsbrief:
Israeli Company Receives Notice of Allowance from US Patent Office for
Synthetic Marijuana Pharmaceuticals

The Israeli-based Pharmos
pharmaceutical company announced last week that it has received a Notice
of Allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a patent application
relating to the use of the company's synthetic marijuana derivative Dexanabinol
in the treatment of stroke, anti-inflammatory diseases and other disorders.

The company is presently
in the patient-recruitment phase of a US Phase III trial on the effectiveness
of Dexanabinol for the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
A previous Phase II trial by Pharmos of 67 Israeli patients found that
Dexanabinol reduced mortality and eased intracranial pressure in subjects
suffering from severe head injuries.

Similar synthetic marijuana
derivatives have been effective in preclinical models in the treatment
of a variety of disorders, including "inflammatory disorders, neurodegenerative
disorders, brain ischemia, autoimmune diseases and pain," a Pharmos press
release stated.

According to a 1999 report
by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, naturally occurring
cannabinoids in marijuana also provide symptomatic relief for a number
of indications, including AIDS, cancer and chronic pain. Authors
of the study further noted that marijuana's neuroprotective qualities are
the "most prominent" of its potential therapeutic applications.

16. Teen
Facing 26 Years for First-Time Marijuana Offense Sentenced to Two

A 19-year-old teenager from
Moulton, Alabama, who had plead guilty to selling small amounts of marijuana,
had his 26-year sentence cut to two by a state judge last week. The
defendant, Webster Alexander, was ordered to serve one year in the county
jail and a second year on probation. He will be eligible for a work-release
program in one month.

Circuit Judge Philip Reich
suspended 24 years of Alexander's 26 year sentence after noting the defendant
had obtained a high-school diploma, started college, and successfully completed
a drug rehabilitation program since his arrest. Webster must return
to court in two years, at which time the judge will evaluate his progress.

Webster's original sentence
sparked international headlines when the high-school senior was sentenced
to 26 years in jail after pleading guilty to selling small amounts of marijuana
to an undercover drug agent.

Under Alabama law, selling
marijuana is a felony offense. The penalties for sale of marijuana
are enhanced if the sale takes place within a three-mile radius of a school
or public housing project, adding five years to the sentence for the sale.

17. Marc Mauer
Testimony on Comparative International Rates of Incarceration

Marc Mauer, assistant director
of The Sentencing Project, is delivering testimony on Friday, June 20 to
the US Commission on Civil Rights on "Comparative International Rates of
Incarceration: An Examination of Causes and Trends," examining the
dramatic rise in incarceration in the US over the past thirty years and
documents that these developments are due in large part to changes in policy,
and not crime rates, over this period.

June 22, Binghamton to Ithaca, NY, "Skate
for Justice," 50-mile trek against the drug war, sponsored by Students for
Sensible Drug Policy. Full skate beginning in Binghamton, secondary
starting point in Richford for skaters who only want to do the last 17
miles, speakers and entertainment at Ithaca Commons in the evening. E-mail
skate@skateforjustice.org
or visit http://www.skateforjustice.org
for further information.

September 18, Tallahassee, FL, "Innovations in European Drug Policy," the Richard L. Rachin Conference. Sponsored by the Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, in conjunction with the Journal of Drug Issues, at the Center for Professional Development, contact (850) 644-7569 or register@cpd.fsu.edu to register or (850) 644-7368 or jdi@garnet.fsu.edu for further information.

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